"If one of the component regiments of the 16th Punjab can be singled out for comment, it must surely be the 9th Bhopal - usually referred to as the Bo-Peeps - in Flanders in October 1914. In the late afternoon of a cold, wet, late autumn day, the Bhopals went to the aid of the remnants of a British battalion near Neuve Chapelle. Still in cotton-drill, they had their first encounter with trenches and barbed wire and stayed, locked in battle for three days without food. Their losses were eleven officers and 262 men. Three days later, at Festubert, they lost a further 200. Remaining in France until May 1915, they then went on to Mesopotamia where a sepoy, Chattar Singh, earned a Victoria Cross. On return to India, there remained only fifteen of the originals who had sailed for France in 1914.

The Bhopals did not have linked battalions so that they suffered immediate problems when they sustained the heavy casualties of Flanders in 1914 and 1915. Unknown officers were posted in and whole platoons of reinforcements arrived, made up of differing tribal origins. Notwithstanding, the Bo-Peeps' reputation stood high but they constituted a potent argument in favour of the reforms planned for after the war."